Maile Pearl Bowlsbey was just 10 days old when she made her mark on American history, adorably.

As the first baby permitted on the floor of the U.S. Senate during a vote in the 231-year history of the institution, Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s newborn daughter will always be remembered for wearing her duckling onesie and inspiring everyone to make the same joke about the grown babies who have always been welcomed in the upper house of Congress.

But all of the glee that greeted Maile’s visit to the Senate floor can’t excuse a disturbing truth that this moment revealed. That Duckworth is the first sitting senator to give birth in the chamber’s two-century-plus existence isn’t just historic. It’s an indictment.

That it took so long for our most powerful legislators to experience a pregnancy from the point of view of a colleague helps explain the inexplicable cruelty the richest country in the world inflicts on new moms.

Mothers in Estonia, the Slovak Republic, Finland and Hungary all have at least three years of paid maternity leave written into law. Moms get more than a year in Norway, South Korea, Austria, Germany, Japan and Sweden. Our neighbors to the north in Canada get a year. To the south, Mexican moms get 12 weeks of paid leave.

American mothers are guaranteed none. Zero. In many workplaces, if you aren’t back on the job the day after you give birth, that’s on you, mom.

Our institutionalized indifference to the challenges of new motherhood is another world compared to the warm embrace offered to moms in a country like Finland. Three years of paid leave begins with the famed free Finnish “maternity package” — a box delivered to your door filled with essentials and goodies, including diapers, bedding and a snowsuit.

Our moms don’t even get the baby-sized bootstraps we apparently expect mothers to pull their kids up by.

America’s sick disregard for the health of new mothers has deadly consequences.

The United States doesn’t just have the highest maternal mortality rate in the so-called developed world. We’re the only country in which that rate is rising as it declines in comparable countries.

Tragically, 60 percent of the deaths of new American mothers are preventable, according to an analysis by the CDC Foundation.

The unnecessary risk of death that haunts Americans who give birth has to be seen as a consequence of the success of a political movement that is passionately pro-fetus and pro-infant while being almost equally anti-mother.

If that argument offends you, take a look at Texas.

When it comes to fulfilling the “pro-life” agenda, you can’t top the Lone Star State. Texas has foregone millions for defunding Planned Parenthood and billions for refusing Medicaid expansion. And instead of educating teens about sex, the state has pushed the right’s favorite oxymoron — abstinence education.

And it’s working! If by “working,” you mean the teen pregnancy rate remains very high and is declining more slowly than in the rest of the country. And Texas can proudly claim the highest repeat teen pregnancy rate in the nation.

Most disturbingly, the state’s maternal mortality rate in 2010 was about 18.6 per 100,000. By 2014, when these policies went into full effect, it had nearly doubled to 35.8. Meanwhile the rate for California, which embraces the mirror image of all these policies, had fallen.

Yet there is almost no public debate about what Texas or America should do to remove the vile distinction of being the rich world’s deadliest place for new moms. Instead there has been a heated discussion about whether or not the one-quarter of American women who’ve had an abortion should be hanged for exercising control over their body. And the Trump administration is making the case to the world that women should basically only have sex to procreate.

Who can doubt that we prioritize control of women over their health at least partially because of the tiny policy-making role played by the people who’ve actually given birth?

Just imagine what America would look like with 10 babies crawling across the Senate floor. That’s an image Sen. Orrin Hatch jokingly conjured after voting to allow Maile to enter the chamber. But for anyone who cares about Americans who give birth, that would be a scene far preferable to today's mostly-men's club.

Maybe then the Senate would be debating ways to expand health coverage instead of cutting it. Instead of states adding new demands that could cause moms to lose Medicaid coverage, we’d be making sure pregnancy is a qualifying event for insurance.

Or we’d simply make sure all Americans have health care.

Then we could move on to sick and vacation leave so moms could tend to kids, another area where the United States trails its peers. One day we could, like much of the world and many of America’s most progressive states and companies, be talking about paid paternal leave so both parents can share the burdens and joys of parenting.

Instead, we’re just now getting used to seeing a baby in the Senate.

But it’s a start. If more babies make history the way little Maile did, maybe we'll stop cooing and start saving some moms’ lives.

Jason Sattler is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @LOLGOP. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.